


love stories

by antarcticas



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ba Sing Se University, Blushing, Canon Universe, College, Drunken Shenanigans, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Meet-Cute, Metafiction, No War AU, Romantic Fluff, Zutara, Zutara Fanwork Appreciation Work 2020, basically no-war zutara falling in love over reading zutara fanfic, sickeningly cute
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27704567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antarcticas/pseuds/antarcticas
Summary: Katara gets assigned a story to write a report on— about a firebender and a waterbender who fell in love despite the world against them— for her romantic literature class. It's cute and all, but . . .Problem number one: It's also basically Oma and Shu fanfic, and she doesn't know how to feel about that.Problem number two: She made out with a really cute Fire Prince at a party last night, and he keeps looking over her shoulder.This is going to bewild.(For Zutara Fanworks Appreciation Week 2020, Day 3: Fanart, and @hayleynfoster!)
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 70





	love stories

**Author's Note:**

> Hayley Foster is the backbone of this fandom, and this oneshot (which spiraled into a five chapter story for ZKFAW) is inspired by this really cute piece of hers! [Look at it here. ](https://hayleynfoster.tumblr.com/post/629009527580278785/katara-reading-and-they-were-roommates)The scene will come up soon!
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this lil bit of no war fluff!

The first time they meet, it's at one of those strange parties Toph likes hosting— her parents only want her to invite the top brass of the nations, but she's _Toph,_ so of course she invites anything that can breathe. She has guards, of course, who are supposed to keep her in check, but nobody messes with the self-declared 'greatest earthbender in the world!'. Katara can't even contest that claim because Toph is pretty scary when she wants to be, and she doesn't understand why Toph's parents still attempt to keep her under lock-and-key anyway. 

In the South Pole, alcohol is imported and used for special occasions, never really for recreation. But, as she forces herself to remember again, sidling up to her brother and his Kyoshi Warrior girlfriend, it's different here. All the other kids who attend Ba Sing Se University with her are holding steel cups in their hands, deciding to consume alcohol rather than attack the feast laid out across the room. Sokka's the exception, of course. The second she taps him on the shoulder, he disappears to go grab a stack of plates and stride towards the pile of buns in the middle of the room. 

"Ready?" Suki asks. She doesn't wear her makeup during school, of course, and her clear eyes stare at Katara, almost fitting with the smirk she wears. "First party, Katara."

"How is this serious? Toph is literally younger than me."

"Don't let her hear you say that," Suki chuckles, as though she knows something Katara doesn't. A moment later, Katara feels a sharp elbow to her gut, and she turns her eyes downwards, catching sight of the rich earthbender, who grabs her dress and laughs. 

"Get dressed up today, Katara?"

"Toph," she tries to smile. "Great party."

Toph suddenly grabs her hands and turns them towards her, a devilish smile falling onto her face. "How come you haven't touched the good stuff yet?"

"I just got here," she explains quickly. "And I've never—"

"Nope, Sugar Queen. Don't give me that. Come on, lemme show you the good stuff."

So Katara ends up humoring Toph past a point that's probably appropriate because she can't lie to herself— she's a little curious about what can be found in alcohol that can't be anywhere else. Minutes later Toph is entertaining other kids in their grade, and she's back next to Suki, her fingers idly bending out a strange, clear, _dark_ liquid. It looks almost like water but it feels thick across her fingers, sluggish, and she doesn't know how she feels about putting that in her body. 

"Don't play with your food," Suki scolds as Sokka comes back, several plates in his hand. He gives one to Suki with flourish then digs into one of the others, and Suki sighs before grabbing him by the back of his shirt and dragging him over to a table on the side, where they can sit on low-cushions rather than eat in the air. Sokka looks up then and laughs at Katara spinning the liquid inside of her glass.

"Just drink it, sis."

"Aren't you supposed to be telling me this is a bad idea?"

"It is. Sometimes. But you're safe, and I'm here, so might as well. Unless you're—"

Katara knows what he's about to say, so she downs her glass in one go, regretting it seconds later when she starts coughing against the table. Suki reaches down and claps her on the back, and her eyes water. "What— was— _that?"_

"Independence. Get used to it."

* * *

Katara does not want to get used to it. Katara never wants to do this again. 

Unfortunately, she can't drag her first glass— and then the second and third ones she'd downed after, as a middle finger to her brother— out of her veins, as she details to one of the annoying rich Fire Nation boys in the corner after Sokka finishes eating and Suki drags him away to . . . make out, or whatever they do when they're alone that _she doesn't want to think about._ She wouldn't have felt okay with being alone, around total strangers . . . but she trusts Toph. She can be a little harsh and rough around the edges, but anyone allowed into her house is likely vetted.

She doesn't know what this guy's name is. He told her, but she's forgotten, and it doesn't matter. She thinks he'd been trying to hit on her at first, but she also thinks he isn't really trying anymore. His expression has glazed out, and she's gesturing at him with her hands in a full circle, trying to explain her thoughts. 

"I mean, it's just blood, right? And it's also mainly water, so you should be able to take it out, but I don't know where. Like, I do know where, but I don't want to puke, or, like . . . have something come out from the other end?" she squints. "Do you catch my float?"

"My float?"

"You Fire Nation people," she sighs. "Float. Like, ice float? No. No?"

"I, um," he rubs his shoulder nervously. "I think I should go."

"You don't think this is interesting?" she frowns. "I think this could really work as a cure to, like, hangovers and stuff. I should talk to Pakku about it, except he's stupid and misogynistic, and he keeps trying to suck up to me because he's in love with my grandma, and it's super gross, and I hope she never touches him with a wooden pole . . ."

The guy's gone now, and she's pressed to one of Toph's walls, a glass still in her hand. There are only a few drops in it, and they splash against it, and she looks down and laughs and then continues talking to the wall because at least it'll listen to her. "Yugoda is super nice, though. Maybe I'll ask her. I don't know. Does this even count as healing? Maybe I should try it on myself. Can I try on you?" She pokes the wooden framing, and it doesn't move. 

"Are you talking to the wall?"

She turns around, her eyesight hazy, to take in a _tall_ boy. He towers above her, and his face is hazy, but one half of it is dull red and strange. She recognizes _that,_ if not the rest of his features. This is— _that_ guy. Prince Zuko. Zuko, whatever. Azula's brother is a better way to put that, she frowns. Azula is— her friend. Frenemy. Something. _She's so fake._

Katara almost trips against nothing when she says that aloud, and Prince Zuko almost looks confused— well, he would look confused, if he had two eyebrows. She can't really tell right now, but she thinks he's confused. His face is super blurry.

"Uh, who's fake?"

"She is?" she wobbles again. "She's so annoying. And you're, like, her brother or something."

"Azula?" It seems as though he's come upon some understanding. "Oh. You're Sokka's sister. Katara?"

Katara's unable to concentrate very much at all, and that's the final straw. She staggers upright, and Zuko places an arm around her, keeping her straight against him. He's warm like a lot of firebenders are. It's so weird. "I'm not Sokka's sister. I'm Katara. That's rude."

He helps her up until she's very, very straight again, but then his hand disappears from her waist, and she finds herself keeling over again, right into her glass. Zuko grabs her again, his hands snug around her, and grabs the steel cup that falls out of her hand too. The liquid isn't caught, but Katara freezes it in midair and starts giggling, leaning into him. She wonders if she can play with those drops, and she does, spinning them into circles, flush against him. He is so, so _warm,_ and it feels nice. She didn't know she was cold. 

"Didn't you just call me Azula's brother?"

Somehow, she doesn't break her concentration on the alcohol, keeping it spinning in midair. "Okay," she sighs. "I guess that's fair."

"Can you stand?" he asks awkwardly, and she tosses her hair over her open shoulder and stares up at him, taking in his face. It's scary, that's true, but it’s almost familiar, and she's seen him from a distance plenty of times. It looks . . . different, up close, notable. It doesn't seem scary so much as it looks defining. The way it's smoothed over, too . . . 

She wonders how he got it, but even drunk Katara isn't dumb enough to ask. She doesn't answer him, though, just smiles at him brightly. "Are you thirsty?"

"What?"

If he'd wanted to let her go, he would have by now. "Drink?"

"What?"

She liquifies her drink and shoves it into his open mouth, and he chokes against it. _"What_ was that?"

"A drink?" she smiles at him lopsidedly, again, and he sputters for another second, and she feels every vibration, pressed up against him.

"I— okay," he frowns, seeming more confused, still, than angry. "That was a drink?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Do you want me to let you go now?"

"I . . ." she reaches her now empty hands down and feels the fingers he's curled around her waist against the silk of her dress. They're warm. "You're warm."

"I'm a firebender. And you're a waterbender," Zuko states blithely. "You're cold."

"Oh. Sorry."

"No, don't . . . it's fine," he mutters. "I just . . . don't want you to feel uncomfortable."

"I'm good. Are you good?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Then we're all good!"

She shifts against him again, and he does too. "What were you talking about, with that guy?"

"Oh. Him. I was telling him that bloodbending could solve hangovers, and he didn't seem very re-receptive to that. He was _bored._ Can you imagine?"

"Nah," he says. "That actually sounds sort of interesting."

* * *

"So you dated Azula's friend? The tall gloomy one? Who's super tall?"

"You said tall twice."

"Still."

"Yeah, I did. Mai." She bursts out into laughter, pressing against the wall. The party is going on around her, but drunk Katara has fixated on partly drunk Zuko. "What's so weird about that?"

"She's just . . . her."

"Yeah," he pulls back, one of his hands still against her, and runs the other through his long hair, tied back in a topknot. "She's a super big . . . _blah."_

"A big _blah,"_ Katara keeps on laughing. 

* * *

"I can't imagine having to take a class with Sokka."

"I can't imagine having to take a class with Azula."

"We should get to take classes together. Without weird siblings. You're cool," she frowns. "It's too bad you're old."

"I'm . . . barely two years older than you."

"That's a lot of years."

"Fine," he chuckles. "What's your major, anyway?"

"I'm majoring in nursing and poli-political science."

"Doubling up, huh?"

"I'm _smart."_

"I definitely think you are. Your Dad's the chief, right?"

"Yes, he is. And your grandpa is the Fire Lord?"

"My _what?"_

"Your grandpa. Grandpa Lord. Lord grandpa."

"I . . ." Zuko looks lost and amused. "I just call him Fire Lord Azulon."

"That," she pronounces, leaning to poke him in the chest, "is _boring."_

* * *

"So why are you here, Prince Zuko?"

"Don't call me that."

"But it's so cool. You're a prince. Wait," she frowns, "what are you majoring in?"

"History," he sighs. "I'll be an ambassador for the nations, probably, and I like stories. They're fun."

"Very fun," Katara nods sagely. "Why did you come here?"

"Like, to Ba Sing Se?"

"No. You came here to go to college. Because you're smart. Why are you _here?"_

"Uh, because Toph dragged me? She also— she was the one who told me to talk to you. Pushed me here, actually."

"Oh," Katara frowns. "But you're still here."

"Yeah," he smiles. "I am. You're pretty cool, Katara."

Drunk Katara decides, at that moment, to pull him close to her and kiss her. It's sloppy, and ugly, and cold and warm, but it doesn't feel _too_ wrong—

* * *

Katara wakes up in the apartment she shares with Sokka and Suki and _groans,_ because you're supposed to forget stuff when you drink alcohol. She can't forget anything. She closes her eyes and sees nothing but gold irises, and she recalls what happened last night in flashes, in dumb snippets of conversations that ended in—

_Did she kiss the prince of the Fire Nation?_

Oh no no no no _no._

Her hair is a mess when she flops her way into the kitchen and miserably tugs out cold porridge from the icebox, tossing it into a pot and then setting the cooking fire. The second she stares into it she does a double take, because fire, and heat, and blue flames, and _shit—_

She did, in fact, kiss the prince of the Fire Nation. 

* * *

Katara isn't the kind of girl who goes to parties, which should be sort of obvious, because she's nineteen and last night was the first time she'd ever been drunk. Katara is the kind of girl who studies in order to get her degrees so she can start up a series of clinics in her homeland, and the kind of girl who reads several hours a day, and the kind of girl who survives on heavily caffeinated tea, not alcohol. 

She has never talked to Prince Zuko, and she's never intended to, and she can't believe she'd just— forgotten his reputation last night. Not his, particularly, but simply _him—_ the Prince of the Fire Nation, the strongest monarchy in the world. Sure, he's not going to receive the throne, but he's still a very prominent political figure, and she's the daughter of the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe. 

She moans into her tea as she walks to her first class of the day— one of her electives, a course on romantic literature. It's something incredibly self-indulgent for her, but she loves it anyway, and it fulfills her general language credit. She doesn't normally buy tea from Pao's Tea House before class, but she thinks that today might be a good time to splurge a little. It's black, and it hits her throat in the best way— she presses her reusable cup to her lips to smell the scent of it against her. 

It would be the end of the world if Zuko suddenly decided to show up in her class in the middle of year, but she’s read about stupid things like that happening all the time. Luckily for her, her romance scrolls stay fictional for the time being, and the class taught by Aunt Wu— as she insists on being called— is small and intimate as usual. She sits down next to Song, a sweet girl who she shares her not-waterbending healing class with. 

She settles in and watches all the others around her do the same. She can recognize some of them, bleary-eyed and exhausted, from the party last night; Haru, particularly, looks as though he’s going to turn his insides onto the scrolls in front of them. Aunt Wu claps loudly as a long, tolling sound reverberates through the entire university, marking the hour. 

“Today we’ll be talking about Oma and Shu,” she starts, and that already has Katara blushing. “Particularly modern renditions of it, and the ways it’s been passed down throughout the centuries as a love story that transcends time. You’ve all read the original tale, of course, so we’ll be delving into newer renditions of it, and explorations of it in different universes. Fictional universes.”

She walks by them as they lounge on the floor-cushions, passing them scrolls, and Katara sighs when she sees that hers is one she’s already read— it’s one of her favorites. The story of Oma and Shu, depicted through the story of the noble firebender who almost died for his loved one, a waterbender. It’s set years ago, at a time when racism and differences defined the nations. It was written, in fact— she checks— a hundred years ago, around the time Avatar Aang had defeated Fire Lord Sozin. 

Aunt Wu elaborates on that. “The recent period of literature we’ll be discussing will discuss the events of the beginning of the new-marked time, a hundred or so years before now. Can anyone tell me what was significant about this time period?”

“The defeat of the Fire Lord, of course,” Song pops up. 

“Good, good. And how did this generally contribute to the literature of the day?”

“It tended to be . . . not dystopian, exactly, but searching for hope. Many people at the time thought that a great war was on the brink of starting, and when the war stopped they kept writing about that hope and the unity of the nations.”

“Great job, Haru. Who can tell me how this impacted real world events?”

“The social movement to portray great romances and unity led to the educated population being willing to acknowledge the barriers between the nations, and work to resolve them. We established Republic City as a way for the nations to get along, and they did. And now we’re here.” 

Katara talks about this continuity all of the time in her other classes, and Aunt Wu smiles at her serenely. “Yes, very good. Now let’s take a step back. This is a class on romantic literature. So we are going to discuss how the turmoil at the beginning of this century led to rewrites of some of the greatest tales in history,” she turns and winks at them, and then the scrolls in their hands. “Some of them are . . . very _Fire Nation,_ if you understand what I mean?”

Bright and bubbly Ty Lee and her sister, Ty Woo, look at each other, deeply confused. “Is she trying to say . . .”

“Spicy?” Song laughs, and Katara snickers too. Aunt Wu seems lost in her own little world, and doesn’t take much notice of their antics. 

“Yes, yes, it can be quite fun to read. Some of you have received stories of the sort. You’ll be writing reports on them, of course— let me know if you’ve read yours before, and I’ll give you a new one—” 

Katara wants to _die._

She’s read this one, before, for fun, and it does have _spicy_ parts that take place in the Caldera City Palace after the waterbender heals the firebender, and she is _not going to admit that she’s read it,_ so she bites her lips together and smiles innocently at her teacher. “Sounds good to me!”

“Alright, great. Here are the rules for the report— I expect you to do your research on all of it, spend time in the library with Professor Wan Shi Tong, create study groups, etcetera. I want to know about _love,_ and powerful bending, and how it surpasses differences in nationality and bending.”

Katara wants to _leave._ Aunt Wu tosses her a scroll and then shuffles to the back of the room, attempting to talk to everyone individually. She stares blankly at the scroll in front of her, closed, while Song twitters about her rewrite of the myth, a rather simple one. 

“You’re lucky, Katara. Yours is the one about the firebender and the waterbender— _oh.”_

All of a sudden an image of a scarred face and warm hands and hot lips floods through her mind, and she turns red. “Yeah. Oh.”


End file.
